Dragged turntable from storage - it lives!

Dragged turntable from storage - it lives!

Author
Discussion

karma mechanic

Original Poster:

791 posts

129 months

Sunday 28th January
quotequote all
Back before digital I had various hifi items, with regular bouts of upgradeitis. Some old stuff was stored in an inaccessible part of the area under the eaves, so it hadn't been looked at for decades..

A few years ago I pulled out the old deck, plugged in the moving coil preamp, and due to a confusion over power supply cables the special preamp smoke came out. So I put it all away again.

Today I pulled out the old deck to see what state it was in. Surprisingly, it works. The deck is a much modified Thorens TD165, I was expecting the belt to have crumbled away but it runs fine if you give it a little shove to get going. Without a moving coil preamp I tried plugging it into the normal phono inputs. It is missing about 20dB like that, but by turning the amp gain up a lot you do get a reasonable volume.

The arm is a Mission 774, the cartridge is a Dynavector Ruby Karat, both from around 1984.








Yes, it was all a bit dusty....

You can see that the cantilever of the cartridge is made of a grown ruby, hence the name.

Unfortunately I have hardly any vinyl, and no suitable MC preamp so it isn't going to get used. But fascinating that this old stuff still works!

Lucid_AV

438 posts

43 months

Thursday 1st February
quotequote all
Nice gear. Worth spending some time and cash to get it up and running properly, but you could easily find it a new owner too. Either way, some lovely gear.

karma mechanic

Original Poster:

791 posts

129 months

Thursday 1st February
quotequote all
Back in the day it wasn't too expensive. My NS1000M's were £495!

I guess the equivalent cartridge now would be an arm and a leg. The turntable is the weakest link, but it has a reworked suspension and lots of added mass to both the plinth and the platter. (Green plasticine!) The hinges at the back of the lid are cracked.

I suspect that a MC preamp is more than I'd want to pay just to play around. On the other hand I don't have the boxes so selling it might be difficult too. I'll clean it up anyway. I don't suppose it will lose much value now...

Deranged Rover

3,780 posts

81 months

Thursday 1st February
quotequote all
karma mechanic said:
Back in the day it wasn't too expensive. My NS1000M's were £495!
Oof!

I dream of finding a pair of NS-1000Ms for £495 now!!

karma mechanic

Original Poster:

791 posts

129 months

Thursday 1st February
quotequote all
Still running the NS1000Ms, but as Frankenspeakers!

Left and right each go through a miniDSP 2x4HD to split bass, mid and tweeter, with some mild peq to straighten out the unit responses and some delays to get them all perfectly time aligned at the main listening position.

Then a Nord 6-channel class D amp to drive the individual units, no passive crossover.

And lots of wires.


Lucid_AV

438 posts

43 months

Thursday 1st February
quotequote all
karma mechanic said:
Still running the NS1000Ms, but as Frankenspeakers!

Left and right each go through a miniDSP 2x4HD to split bass, mid and tweeter, with some mild peq to straighten out the unit responses and some delays to get them all perfectly time aligned at the main listening position.

Then a Nord 6-channel class D amp to drive the individual units, no passive crossover.

And lots of wires.
Active NS-Ms. Who'd have thunk it. LOL